As part of IMS2015, RFIC 2015 kicked off its technical activities on Sunday, May 17. Plenary presenter Dr. Peter H. Siegel from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) went beyond the microwave regime to discuss the terahertz (THz) band. In addition to sensing ozone in deep space or pollution monitoring in earth science applications, JPL has been investigating the THz band for non-invasive glucose monitoring. While their testing has been quite successful on laboratory animals and they are pursuing commercialization possibilities, they may not be the first to market. As Siegel noted in his presentation, a UK company, Mediwise, has developed a 65 GHz (low end of the THz range) glucose measuring device call GlucoWise. In either case, the prospects for noninvasive monitoring look extremely promising.
While not involved with sensing, The Industry Showcase included several interesting presentations from leading companies, including:
- Bell Labs: A 16-Element W-Band Phased Array Transceiver Chipset
- MediaTek: Dual-Band Integrated WiFi Power Amplifier
- BAE Systems: 20-GHz PLL-based Configurable Frequency Generator
- BAE Systems: The MATRICs RF-FPGA in 180nm SiGe-on-SOI BiCMOS
- Broadcom: Software-Defined Cable Receiver Front End Enabling Ultra HDTV in 28 nm CMOS
- IBM: A Capacitance Boosted Full-Octave LC VCO Based 0.7 to 24 GHz Fractional-N Synthesizer
- IBM: A Robust Low Phase Noise Ku band VCO for E-band and V-band Backhaul Transceivers
- Qorvo: Multiband Multimode SiGe Power Amplifier
- Skyworks Solutions: Single Chip 5-6 GHz 802.11ac Front-end IC
- NGC: InPHBT/GaN HEMT/Si CMOS Heterogeneous Integrated Q-Band VCO-Amplifier Chain
- NXP: Ku Band Down-Converter for QUAD LNB Application
For more information about IMS2015 or RFIC 2015 click the respective highlighted links.